


Love in Threes

by SLq



Category: X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: AU, Angst, Canon, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 23:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLq/pseuds/SLq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three stories that never happened, between two men who loved each other without quite knowing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in Threes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TsubaruKimimori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsubaruKimimori/gifts).



> Repost.

**Beauty**

 

Seishirou, like most men, is weak against beauty. He adores elegance, loses himself in richness of taste and sight and touch. He _hoards_ it - surrounds himself with lush plushiness and gorgeous colors and colorful baubles of all kinds until there is no space left bare in his apartment, office, car.

There is no one to see Seishirou smile in the pitch darkness of a lonely park but an old, twisted cherry tree.

 _Weaker than most, perhaps,_ he allows.

Still, this weakness - like the rest of him - has shallow roots. Seishirou's heart is ruled by neither gold nor god. He may covet their luster, but its presence gives him no joy - just as its absence incurs no pain.

The ground is hard beneath him. Seishirou shifts, feels stalks of hard grass crush and snag against the thick thread of his coat. There will be stains, perhaps too severe to threat. He does not mind, welcomes the opportunity to find another: Perhaps something in deep blue, with silver trim...

Seishirou frowns; this, this is the problem, is it not? Something is wrong with him, and he does not know how to fix it.

 _You are troubled_.

Seishirou sighs. The Tree rustles softly above him, branches curling ever-so-slightly downward. Seishirou tips his head backwards, a phantom smile on his lips. A few leaves tangle in his hair, deep-green and lush with life.

"Yes," he mutters.

_Is it the sapling?_

A low chuckle. "He is no longer a child," he says and wonders what Lady Sumeragi would think of having her grandson referred to in such a strange way. Nothing good, he supposes.

 _You are all children to me_ , the Tree declares. There is enough disdain in Its manner to make It frightful to most, even those who cannot hear Its words.

Seishirou cannot feel fear. Moreover, he has spent enough time with the Tree's churlish voice in his head as to be able to tell malice apart from dry wit. The statement is nothing more than what it appears, like most things in life. Seishirou answers it with a polite, "I suppose," and pushes to his feet. He has dallied long enough - the night has grown cold and dark around him, colder where his shirt sticks to his skin with another man's blood.

_Why not break him?_

Seishirou pauses, a step short from the brightly-lit path that curls around Ueno Park.

The Tree rustles behind him - a wordless inquiry.

Seishirou takes a breath, then another when his lungs burn with need for air.

Why not, indeed.

"It is not necessary," he says. His voice, still mild and polite, strains around the edges.

 _He distracts you_ , the Tree notes. Adds, _He haunts you_.

Marble face. Rubies for lips, emeralds for eyes - all soft, dear, lush with life and joy and a shy, earnest want.

Seishirou shakes his head.

"It is not necessary," he repeats and there is steel in his voice, fire in his eyes.

The Tree hums behind him, uncaring and unconvinced. When nothing but silence stretches between them, Seishirou resumes his stride. If it is more hurried, more uneven than before, there is no one to see it.

He is at the park's gates when he hears it: A whisper in the wind, a beam of moonlight in a darkened sky.

 _I will have his blood before long_ , the Tree promises - wills. A spell; Seishirou realizes it a moment too late - feels an oath bind his heart in silver chains.

"You will," he says after a pause, after the panic that had risen to smother his voice subsides enough for reason to return. The Tree hums again, content. Blood will be had. The bejeweled face in Seishirou's heart is no longer smiling, but it is there and there it will remain.

His beauty is far from spent, after all, and Seishirou so adores beautiful things.

 

* * *

 

**Love**

 

He loves him.

It is a startling discovery - both in its timing and in the fact that it happens at all, considering.

Well. The hand in his chest, for one.

Wide green eyes look down at him, bleak with terror. One of them, at least - the other is sightless, and Seishirou tries not to look at it too much. He is not quite over being angry at the marring of what had once been a perfectly beautiful face. Sure, it was flattering to think that his beloved wished to imitate him in some way, but really, dressing better would have been a much preferred alternative.

Not that it matters much, given that he is about to die.

But yes, love. He loves him - the stupid, childish, broken man who craddles him in his arms like he is something precious, who presses tear-stained lips against his cheek and pleads Seishirou stay, stay, stay. One spell had manifested, it seems, and another had broken - torn free from Seishirou's chest by his darling's fingertips.

So Seishirou smiles. Through the pain, the heartbreak, the guilt - he smiles and leans forward, leans in, touches bloody lips to ones pale with shock and fear and horror.

"I love you," he breathes and falls, into him, freer than he has ever been before. More selfish, too.

But what is love, if not selfish?

_Dear Subaru-kun, is it not strange? Had I not loved you, had Hokuto not loved you, you would have had us forever._

But he does, and so he goes, and leaves his loved one alone.

 

* * *

 

**Dream**

 

They are asleep.

Subaru sighs, closes the book and his eyes and groans. Finally, finally asleep!

The door creaks open; Subaru starts from his chair, whirls around to aim a bleary-eyed glare at the face peeking in. _Shhh!_ he mouths; on the other side, Seishirou grins and crooks a finger.

 _Come out, then_. The door opens further, spills grayish light into the pitch darkness of the bedroom.

Subaru cringes, but the boys are still fast-asleep when he turns to check on them - twin lumps of dark hair and plump cheeks and reddened noses. They had put up quite the resistance to getting into bed, even tired as they were. Begged him to let them play with their presents, in the snow outside, for _just one more story, pretty please_?

One more story had turned into four. But at least they were asleep now, twined around each other in a familiar manner. What an odd thing, to carry down.

 _Your mother will be very proud of you_ , Subaru thinks and cannot quite suppress a grin, at his own expense as it is.

 _Good night_ , he whispers and backs out of the room, eyes on the serene faces of Hokuto's boys. Of his nephews. Terrors that they are when they are awake, they still fill his heart with joy like nothing else.

Strong arms close about him as soon as he steps into the hallway, pull him into a warm chest.

Well, almost nothing else.

 _We missed you_ , Seishirou whispers against his neck. Subaru shivers, pulls the door to the boys' bedroom closed before turning into the embrace. _Right,_ he nips at his husband's lips, _I'm sure Hokuto was devastated._ His sister had spent most of the night trying to sneak kisses from her own husband without being spotted by two very vocal and extremely curious munchkins. He is certain she had put the hour or so Subaru had entertained her sons into good use.

 _Well, I missed you,_ Seishirou amends. Subaru smiles, ruins their next kiss with a yawn. Seishirou pouts, sniffs exaggeratedly, _Are you too tired to play with me?_

Subaru snorts, clamps down on a startled laugh before it can escape and wake the boys. _Hardly. Although I will be, if I have to do that all over again. So be quiet._ Seishirou nods, but Subaru is uncertain if his husband has heard him - he has gone back to kissing his neck, and quite determinedly at that.

 _Bedroom_ , Subaru demands - laughs as Seishirou picks him up and takes off in a hurried stride toward the guest bedroom. There is a bit more groping, a bit more laughing along the way, and Subaru somehow loses a sock. Still, they make it in one piece and Subaru giggles again when he is set on the floor, pulls Seishirou in by bunching the front of his ridiculous Christmas sweater and kisses him breathless.

 _I love you_ , he tells him, serious, and kisses him again. _You are my everything._

 _I love you, too_. Seishirou nuzzles his throat, bites at his jaw - oh. Subaru melts against him, trusts him to hold them up. _I want a family with you._

Subaru stills his lazy exploration of Seishirou's chest. Slowly, he lifts his head - regard his husband with eyes rapidly clearing from both fatigue and lust.

_What?_

_I do,_ Seishirou leans in, kisses him again. And again. _I want a family. I want a terror of our own to tuck in bed at night_. When Subaru remains still as a stone, Seishirou pulls away. Black eyes study him, intense and focused and all-seeing. _Unless it is not what you want?_

 _Not what - God,_ Subaru gasps - a broken, wet warble. _It's- Seishirou, it's_ everything _that I want! I -_ he kisses him, pulls him closer and tugs at the god-awful sweater, feels Seishirou's strong hands peel away his own clothing.

 _Me too,_ he hears, _me too_ and laughs, laughs, hits the bed laughing with joy.

A light grows somewhere, warms the side of his face. Chills his heart. Subaru ignores it, clings to Seishirou and his loving words and his heated touches.

There is time yet.

Just a little more.


End file.
